IT started with the morbidly popular skulls, which popped up on everything from scarves to wallets. Now trigger-happy designers have switched from death to destruction, with jewelry and clothes emblazoned with knives and tanks, AK-47s and grenade launchers. Death, it seems, becomes her. “When I create, I go to my own experiences. I grew up in Israel and I experienced war when I was 6 or 7 years old. I am completely aware of conflict,” says TriBeCa designer Nili Lotan, who spent the first 25 years of her design career creating mainstream American sportswear for Ralph Lauren and Liz Claiborne. Lotan’s spring line, from her third year designing for her own label, is anchored by a collection of silk tunic dresses, miniskirts and shorts with gun and oil-rig prints.

“When you live in Israel, you are constantly aware that you live in an unstable environment. And the oil rigs? All American involvement, what motivates this nation to get involved, is oil.”

But Lotan, who served two years in the Israeli army and was married to an Israeli pilot, says she isn’t just trying to talk politics through miniskirts. Most of the people who wear them just want to look cool.

“My line is a reflection of my own references. But, as strong as the gun print is, you forget what it is,” says Lotan, who has a Duane Street boutique. “And this is far cooler than a skull print.”

The fashionable call to arms, inspired mostly by the day’s headlines, is also a reaction to the commercialization of the skull, once a sign of renegade culture. Since the gruesome symbol got a cutesy face-lift, appearing everywhere from Target to Hello Kitty, it was clearly time for a change.

“There always have to be images that are representative of rebellion. Fashion is an industry of rebellion and revolution, and skulls were always the iconic image of alternative punk, grunge and Goth subcultures,” says Sass Brown, assistant professor in the fashion design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “And once it moves in to the mass culture, it gets rejected by the subculture.”

Brown says she thinks designers have been gunning for a change for some time. She believes weapons imagery is representative of hip-hop and urban gangster-rap culture, citing the Al Pacino as “Scarface” images that have been on T-shirts, on album covers and referenced on countless hop-hop tracks.

“Fashion is a means of communication, and designers are just as susceptible, if not more, to the images around them. From politics, to culture, to how safe you’re feeling at any given time,” she says. “And America has not felt like a terribly safe place for years; I think America is a very fearful culture.”

For East Village jewelry designer Jules Kim, it’s all about making a statement – fashion and political – without actually having to come out and explain it.

“My whole collection is my view on American society and culture, about how we’re ready to shoot s–t up and have nothing to say about it. We should disarm the weaponry and empower women. I’ve been saying this for two years, and it’s just getting hot now,” Kim says, referring to her $1,400, 7-inch silver grenade launcher that’s meant to be worn like a sling. Kim launched the design a couple of years ago but has only recently been selling out in boutiques in Boston and Japan.

When Kim created her grenade launcher, currently being knocked off and sold for $13.99 on Jamaica Avenue, she made sure to get her point across as subtly as possible – the clip was purposely designed backward on the piece.

“First it was the skull, now it’s all about the weapons. Then we’ll come up with another icon. It’s going to be samurai swords, swashbuckler swords, hockey masks and lightning bolts. Trust me, you’ll see it everywhere in three months,” she says.

But if you do choose to arm yourself, just don’t wear it on an airplane. Kim travels wearing all her own jewelry, including knuckles and the launcher, and says she has to allow herself at least an extra 30 minutes just to clear security.